


Artificial Light

by wildflowersoul



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, False Identity, M/M, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:59:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wildflowersoul/pseuds/wildflowersoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hydra enlists Taskmaster to impersonate Steve Rogers. He's good enough to fool Bucky Barnes, for a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Artificial Light

**Author's Note:**

> Huge, enormous thanks to [Tenillypo](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Tenillypo/pseuds/Tenillypo) for shepherding this work from an unreadable mess into something coherent. And for getting me into this Captain America crack in the first place. Any canon problems are totally my own refusal to listen to her wise advice. 
> 
> This is canon to post-TWS. No Civil War spoilers, though I did shamelessly steal the memory notebook idea from a Sebastian Stan interview in the pre-CW press tours.

_l’ll cut all your wires_  
_And I never cared_  
_Cut all your wires_  
_What can be there? It's dead_  
_And all the invisible arcs_  
_Are caught in my head_  
-Rainer Maria, Artificial Light

 

**Prologue**

_One week post-TWS_

“You don’t want the asset returned?”

Jack Rollins barked a laugh. “He fucked up the last three missions we gave him. He’s been reheated too many times. I’d throw him away with the rest of the garbage we’re cleaning out, but this might be the best final use of him.” He tapped the tablet in his hand and brought up a photo of Steve Rogers. “If we’d known sooner how much his old friend meant to him, we might have tried a more subtle approach with Rogers before all this.” He waved a hand at the wreckage of the bombed out Hydra bunker they stood in.

“Destroying Captain America from the inside out will be much more satisfying than blunt force. I think it will be his very undoing.” The other man reached a greedy hand for the tablet that still showed Steve, golden haired and squinting into the sun. As he gazed at the photo his own hair lightened, shortened. His fingers elongated almost imperceptibly, but Rollins still flinched away. The man gave Rollins a mock salute. His mouth, now the very image of Steve Rogers’ mouth, twisted in a bitter smile. “You’ll know when I’ve completed my mission. I’ll expect payment in my account every Friday.”

Rollins nodded his head at the tablet. “The asset has a tracker implant. Program’s on there.” The man tucked the tablet into his jacket and walked away, his shoulders squared. Rollins touched his earpiece. “Taskmaster activated.” He kicked a dust covered olive green cabinet and files yellowed with age spilled out. Rollins flicked a lighter and tossed it down. He walked in the opposite direction away from the abandoned New Jersey base. Today had turned from a shitshow into a very good day after all.

_________________________

The soldier had been living rough for a week, skulking the streets of DC, returning to the vault only long enough to raid it and smash the equipment—the chair—to pieces. He could probably rent a room somewhere, if he wanted to deal with people long enough to transact that sort of business. He couldn’t bring himself to do it, though, and slept on rooftops or in empty stores when he saw faded For Rent signs and felt like picking a lock.

Tonight, he lay on the rough concrete roof of an ugly block of an office building. The soldier closed his eyes and tried to find the old space in his mind, where he could wait in perfect stillness for hours until the right moment came for him to take his shot. But no matter how he adjusted his position, that stillness wouldn't come. A car horn honked below. Sweat trickled down his neck. It itched. He itched, he could really use a shower and some clean clothes. His brain itched. He’d been out of cryo too long.

He just needed to sleep for a couple of hours. It was well past midnight, and he’d spent another day walking the shadows of the city, falling in and out of memories. His gun holster was digging into his hip, and the car below was still honking in short bursts of patterns. _Fuck_. He sat up. If he wasn’t going to sleep at least he could manage these problems, these human body problems that he couldn’t remember feeling before.

There was a store across the street, the word _Lucky_ painted on the windows. “Lucky,” he muttered to himself, and jumped easily down to the roof of the building next door, grabbed a windowsill, and slung himself down to the ground. He picked the lock in the back of the store and held a small penlight in his teeth as he pawed through the racks. A couple of shirts, couple of pairs of dark jeans. A hooded sweatshirt. He stuffed it all into a backpack. There was a table piled high with tiny shorts that passed for underwear these days; he grabbed a fistful. Then: socks, and a hat that looked like it had already been worn for years (“distressed” the label said—he could show them a thing or two about distress). He locked the shop back up when he left.

Broken glass crunched under a foot, three o’clock position, 10 yards away. His muscles sparked, hands reflexively reaching for his weapons.

“Bucky?” The voice was hopeful and cracked a little. Like the man on the bridge. Steve. His friend. A shadow detached from the wall of the building next door. “Bucky, it’s me, Steve.”

Steve stepped forward; under the bright streetlight, his hair practically shone like a halo. His unmarred face showed no signs of the blood and bruises that had covered it just a week earlier when the soldier had pulled him from the river. “Bucky, I’ve been looking all over for you.” Steve moved toward him with his palms raised in front of his chest like he was approaching a wild animal. “Do you remember me?”

The soldier— _Bucky_ —hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah.” His voice was rusty from disuse, but a smile flooded Steve’s face with joy at the words, and something deep inside Bucky fissured. “A little,” he added. What a disappointment he’d be when Steve realized how tired and used up Bucky’s brain was now. It was codes and missions and always, always forgetting.

“I, uh, needed clothes.” He shifted the backpack uncomfortably. Dimly, in his mind, he heard the words _Steve doesn’t like stealing_. Well, Bucky doesn’t exactly love stealing, but he’d never needed anything besides Hydra-issued tactical gear before now.

Steve tsked and shook his head, like he couldn’t believe Bucky felt the need to apologize. “Come home with me. I'll give you anything you need. And I can bring you somewhere tomorrow that might help with your memories.” He inched closer. “There’s an exhibit. At the Smithsonian.”

Steve moved his hand to touch Bucky’s shoulder. The arm whirred, plates glided over each other as his fist closed. Images of Steve’s bloody face under his fist flashed in his mind. "I can't. I--" His guts clenched. The soldier’s fight or flight response kicked in, hard and fast. The adrenaline surge and surprise gave him a head start on Steve as he jumped on top of a dumpster and launched up to the roof of the building next door. He ran fast, heedless of the superhuman leaps from rooftops to ground, and soon Steve’s agonized cries of “Bucky!” faded behind him.

_____________________

He spent a week casing the Smithsonian, but if Bucky was honest with himself, he would say he was avoiding going up those cold stone steps. Once inside, he half expected to see Steve lingering at the exhibit, and after the numb shock of seeing his own face up on the wall, he was surprised to realize what he felt most was disappointment. Seeing Steve again meant the turmoil of remembering and regret roiling through his aching body. But the thought of Steve not looking for him, not thinking about him, was somehow worse.

Every time a new memory came back to him, Steve was always there. Sometimes it was Bucky’s voice yelling “Steve!” as he grabbed a slight blond man out from under a fist. Sometimes it was Bucky’s voice whispering “Steve” over a skinny body curled under a thin blanket, wracked with coughs. Sometimes it was just an idea, with no words, of what Bucky had been thinking about while he trudged through muddy fields an ocean away, when he was a simpler kind of soldier—the idea of competent fingers sketching, of those fingers scabbed and grabbing a bottle of iodine irritably out of Bucky’s hands. Bucky wondered if he had known anyone else at all back then. He remembered his ma, of course, and his sisters. But he didn’t remember anyone in color the way he remembered Steve.

On impulse, Bucky stole a composition book. It was marbled black and white and reminded him of school. He wrote every stray scrap that surfaced. He wrote smells—the potato and cabbage soup Steve cooked on winter nights, and the turpentine from Steve’s painting supplies. He wrote sounds—the rusty protest of the fire escape they sat on when Bucky really wanted a cigarette, the wet smack of Steve losing another fight. He wrote the dread he suddenly remembered from the day he got his draft letter. It was the same dread that had stuttered his arm on the helicarrier.

________________________

The thing is, Bucky wanted to be found. If he really wanted to disappear, he wouldn't have stayed in DC. Wouldn't have sat on the same bench every day with sunglasses and a baseball cap his only disguise. But every day, there he was, reading the newspaper and tossing little bits of his bagels at the fat pigeons on the Mall.

(Even the wild animals in the future had the sleek look of abundance. Back in the Brooklyn of his shaky memories, everyone and everything had some edge of lack, of wanting. He had a vague impression of feeling pulled taut that summer before he was drafted. There was never enough food, enough money, and that summer, it felt like even the air was punishing them for daring to want some relief.)

Last night he found an abandoned restaurant, still in possession of a jaunty sign proclaiming it to be Capital City Chilli. He’d slept stretched out on the scratchy upholstery of a booth that smelled faintly like tomatoes and spice and thought about leaving town, but he didn’t know what the point would be. If they eventually came looking for him, they’d probably find him, wherever he was. He thought about going back to Brooklyn, but he knew enough from his missions that the world had changed and Brooklyn wasn’t home anymore. He thought about turning himself into the authorities. Prison would at least give him some structure, some sense that he was supposed to be doing something. He thought about how none of his choices really felt like they were his anyway, and he thought about his miserable fucking life these past few weeks, and he thought about his lost decades, and he thought he would never not feel like just an empty body. Bucky thought himself to tears lying on a booth that had pictures of smiling chili peppers dancing into bowls.

So, Bucky wanted to be found, and it didn’t really surprise him when he saw someone settle down gingerly on the other end of his bench. The man coughed, and Bucky flashed back to one of the hundreds of times he’d heard that cough in another life.

“Buck,” the man said quietly. “Please, don’t go. Just, hear me out. Please don’t go.” Bucky looked over at him. He knew that with the sunglasses on, he was inscrutable. Steve was wearing workout clothes, and his forehead was damp with sweat. “Bucky, I miss you so much. I know you must have a lot you’re dealing with right now, but I want to help you. I want to be there for you. Please, let me help you.” Steve’s knuckles were turning white where he was clasping his hands together; Bucky still noticed they were shaking.

There was a hollow place inside himself that Bucky didn’t think was ever going to be full again, but Steve was here, and maybe that was something after all.

“I’m not the man you remember. I’m…” A weapon. A horror. “I’ve done so many things.” Bucky creased the newspaper and laid it to the side.

Steve’s forehead wrinkled. “None of that was you. I know you. I saw it wasn’t you when we fought on the bridge and the helicarrier. I can see it’s you here, now.”

Stubborn Steve. “You see what you want to see,” Bucky said gruffly, but he didn’t have this fight in him. He took off his sunglasses. Steve bit his lip. Bucky gave him a curt nod. “I’ll come.”

______________________

Steve’s apartment was antiseptic. The living room held a couch, a tv, and a bookcase with about a dozen books on one shelf, the rest empty. A hooded sweatshirt was balled up on one end of the couch. The kitchen looked slightly more lived in, with a pan on the stove that needed to be washed and a coffee mug left on the counter. The second bedroom, where Steve led him, had a bed covered in a navy blue comforter and a side table with a white lamp and a clock.

“You lived here long?” Bucky asked.

“Hmmm? Oh, not really. I haven’t been home much. Saving the world,” Steve made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Searching for my best friend.” He nudged Bucky gently.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. His arm contracted with the nudge, but it didn’t shoot his adrenaline up. It was a start.

“There was a man... “ Bucky furrowed his brow. “I shot a man, through your window.” He looked out the living room window, there was no sight line from the roof next door.

“SHIELD moved me after that incident. Wasn’t hard to pack up and move.”

Bucky sucked on his lower lip and nodded.

Steve grinned at him like he’d just won the lottery. "Hey, you must be exhausted. How long's it been since you slept in a real bed? I got a real soft one for you." He gestured at the pack on Bucky's shoulder. "Give me your bag. I'll wash your clothes while you get some rest."

Bucky hesitated. Even though it was Steve, the pack held everything he had in the world. His most precious possessions; his memories.

Steve must have sensed his reluctance. "Hey," he said, face crumpling a bit. "You're safe here, Buck. You know you can trust me, right?"

"Yeah, I do. 'Course I do." Bucky took a deep breath and abruptly shoved the bag at him.

Steve beamed, and the warmth on his face shoved Bucky's remaining fear away. After all, if he couldn't trust Steve, then who could he trust?

__________________________

Bucky jolted awake and reached for the knives he wore in his tactical gear, but found the soft waistband of Steve’s sweatpants instead. He was at Steve's, he remembered. He'd come home with Steve and this was his room and his bed now. Glancing at the clock, he saw It had barely been an hour since Steve led him in here.

The idea of more sleep, filled with dreams of sinking into the too soft mattress, was unwelcome. He levered off the bed; he’d slept on top of the covers and it barely looked disturbed when he was up. He rubbed his hair, which, he had to admit, was starting to feel pretty gross, and padded silently to the living room. Steve was up already, looking like he was ready to go out for a run. He sat ramrod straight on the couch, thumbing through Bucky’s notebook.

“Might as well be the story of your life as much as mine,” Bucky offered from the doorway. His voice still sounded like a creaky door in a horror film.

Steve started and dropped the notebook with a guilty look. He must have been really engrossed not to hear Bucky coming; Bucky knew his hearing had to be as good or better than his own. “Sorry. I know it’s yours, and it’s private, but I…”

“Steve Rogers was curious. Not surprised.” Bucky leaned his shoulder into the doorframe. “S’okay, it all happened, not like anything in there is a secret from you.” He said it matter of factly, but he couldn’t help the worry nagging at him that he’d made it all up. He’d been brainwashed to forget his life, who was to say they hadn’t fed him false memories while they were at it? The only comfort was he couldn’t see what Hydra would have gained by giving him memories of a life that seemingly revolved around Steve Rogers like the sun.

Steve stood up, stretching his arms over his head. “I’m going for a run. I’d say you should join me, but I don’t know who might be looking for you.”

Bucky's heart clenched at the thought of Steve leaving so soon, but forced it down and shook his head. “It’s ok. I thought I’d take shower?”

_____________________________________

Steve didn’t have much in the way of entertainment. He had a radio, a modern one, not like from when they were kids. It was mostly just commercials and obnoxious music, no stories or radio plays. He had a tv, but it only got three channels. Bucky was more than used to sitting quietly with nothing to do but wait, but sometime in the middle of his third day at Steve’s, his skin started to crawl with boredom.

“I feel like I should be doing something,” he finally said.

Steve was sitting and reading _War and Peace_ , one of the few books he had in the apartment. Bucky could have sworn that Steve had hated that book when they read it in school. But Steve had turned slightly red when he'd said as much—as though embarrassed by Bucky's mistake—and gently corrected him that _Bucky_ was the one who had hated it. Bucky guessed his memories were still imperfect after all. “Like what?” Steve asked, looking up from the book.

Bucky shrugged. “Am I hiding out here? For how long? Do you think they’re looking for me right now?” His metal arm flexed.

“You’re not hiding, you’re… laying low,” Steve said, bending the corner of his page down to mark his place. “Keep your arm covered and a hat on, and we can go out. Maybe see a movie? The real problem is how recognizable I am.” Steve chewed on his lower lip. “Don’t laugh.” He pointed very sternly at Bucky as he backed out of the room.

A minute later, he came back in wearing the worst wig. It was a shaggy black mullet, and it looked incredibly fake. Bucky burst out laughing. He hadn’t laughed since 1943. It felt strange, but good. Steve gave him a look of mock outrage, then bent double, laughing and clutching at his chest. “It’s awful,” Steve managed to wheeze out. “Do you want to go to the movies or not, jerk?” He settled a red trucker cap on top of the wig.

Bucky felt a knot loosen behind his ribs. “Yeah, I do, punk.” He picked up the ratty hoodie that had been on the couch since he’d first arrived. “Cover those biceps. Jesus, I could walk around with my shiny metal arm shooting fireworks and you’d still be more recognizable with your goofy face and those arms. Did you take more super serum while I was gone?”

____________________________

The movie turned out to be fine. Fun, even, at least after Bucky got over his shock in the ticket and snack lines. “Fifteen dollars for a movie and ten dollars for a popcorn. And _I’m_ the criminal,” he muttered.

Steve gave him a fond look. “Wait until you find out how much I pay for rent.” He turned serious. “Everything’s changed, Buck. But now that you’re here. I have to tell you, it doesn’t feel as lonely anymore.”

Bucky didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing, but he added another little patch to the fragile peace he was stitching himself back together with.

__________________________

The first time it happened, Bucky was making breakfast. Scrambling eggs, reaching with his metal hand to grab the toast. He had to reach across Steve, who was lounging against the counter in front of the toaster, being absolutely no help. His arm brushed Steve’s chest, and even though he couldn’t feel anything in the arm itself, the contact lit something up inside him. Bucky looked at Steve, startled, but Steve just blithely continued talking about the Mets game last night like nothing had happened.

After that it was little things, like the way Bucky caught himself watching Steve play a game on his phone, and how Steve sucking his tongue between his teeth made Bucky shiver. Steve coming back in from a run, dripping sweat onto Bucky’s shoulder when he leaned over the back of the couch to see what Bucky was writing in his notebook. Steve reminisced about taking Bucky back to the roller coaster on Coney Island, and the wicked glint in his eye shot something hot and fast in Bucky’s stomach. Bucky felt the prickling awareness of Steve all the time.

Granted, they were living even more in each other’s pockets now than they had been even before the war. Back then, he’d been out working two, sometimes three jobs, and seeing Steve at night with just enough time to shovel food in his mouth before passing out. Now, Steve went out almost every other day for “SHIELD stuff,” as he obliquely put it. Bucky went out, too, unobtrusively, because Steve’s bare apartment was getting on his nerves a little bit. But every time Steve entered the room, it’s like Bucky oriented himself to Steve, re-centering his gravity.

When his body finally caught up to his mind, Bucky was shocked to find his cock straining his pants when Steve knocked sideways into him and grabbed Bucky’s hip to steady himself. Bucky sucked in a breath and locked eyes with Steve. “Sorry, Buck,” Steve said, with his hand still burning on Bucky’s hip.

“I was, uh, thinking,” Bucky started, though he wasn’t doing much thinking at the moment. The feeling of Steve’s fingers curved around him made him want to pull Steve in, settle his own hands around Steve’s back, cup his perfect ass.

“Mmm hmm?”

“I need to get a job.”

“Oh?” Steve asked, impassive.

“It’s boring as hell when you’re out on your SHIELD errands.” Bucky twisted away extricate himself from Steve’s distracting hands.

“Bucky, it’s not as easy as it used to be, you can’t just pick up work. There’s paperwork.” Steve frowned. “You can’t use your social security number. Do you even _have_ a social security number?” He shook his head. “You can’t show back up on the grid. Hydra will find you. They’ll find you and they’ll take you away from me.” Steve reached for him, and this time it was on purpose. He gripped Bucky’s arms, one flesh, one metal. “I don’t think you understand what that would do to me.”

Bucky licked his lips. “Show me,” he whispered.

Steve’s eyes widened. He stepped into Bucky’s space, crowding him against the wall. “You want me to show you?” His voice lowered dangerously.

Bucky nodded. His breath ran ragged.

“I can do that.” Steve brought his finger up to Bucky’s lips. He traced them, made them tingle with anticipation.

“C’mon, Rogers,” Bucky said roughly. He caught Steve’s finger between his teeth.

Steve hissed. His eyes darkened. “I had no idea you wanted this.” He drew his finger away, touched the tip of his tongue to it. He bent his head and hungrily set his lips to Bucky’s.

Bucky drew his metal arm around Steve’s back, pressing him closer. Steve’s kisses were eager and a little too wet, but enthusiasm can make up points lost to artlessness. Bucky splayed his human hand on Steve’s neck and traced up and down, urging Steve to a slower pace. He moaned into their mouths. “I think I’ve wanted this for a long time,” he mumbled into the breath of a space between them. “I can’t remember,” he licked at Steve’s lower lip, “I can’t remember wanting to do this before. But all of my memories are you.” He broke the kiss to brush his lips on Steve’s jawline, inhaling his sharp scent. “I think I must have wanted this. Why else would I remember the exact shape of your skinny elbows and what those damn super soldier tits looked like in our tent in Italy?”

“Super soldier tits? These?”

Bucky felt Steve’s mouth curve into a shit-eating grin and pinched a nipple through his shirt. Fuck if Steve was going to make fun of him when he was baring his goddamn soul over here. “Nicest pair of tits I’ve ever seen.” Steve bit back a moan at the cold touch of his metal fingers.

The shrill ring of Steve’s phone cut through the moment. They sprang apart as if they’d been interrupted by an actual person.

Steve fumbled for his phone. “Yeah?” His voice was hoarse. He raked a hand through his hair, then patted it down into place. Bucky reached over and pulled the hem of his shirt down. Steve’s responses on the phone were vague and noncommittal. When he was done, he gave Bucky a rueful half smile. “Duty calls. I’ll be back soon.” He ducked in and gave Bucky a swift peck on the lips.

______________________________________

Bucky wasn’t snooping, he was actually trying to be helpful. He hadn’t entered Steve’s room at all since coming to live with him, but they were out of clean towels, and he figured he could at least gather up their dirty laundry and bring it to the laundromat with wash-dry-fold service at the end of the block. He went into Steve’s room to scoop up his funky running clothes, and a scrap of paper fell out of the pocket of Steve’s hoodie. The scarlet Hydra symbol, missing two tentacles because the corner was ripped off, blazed up at him from the floor. Bucky sat down heavily on the laundry bag that had dropped from his hand. The paper had the number 25 on it, handwritten in black ink, and the letters BAR, and that’s all that was left of whatever this note had been. Bucky picked it up gingerly with the tips of his fingers. His breathing was shallow and fast. He brought the paper into the kitchen and slapped it on the table.

Steve came home three hours later. He had a bruise blooming on his cheekbone and split lip, and his face lit up when he saw Bucky lounging against the wall with crossed arms. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” He sidled over to Bucky with a grin. The split in his lip widened.

“Am I?” Bucky jutted his chin out. He felt dangerous,

Steve’s forehead crinkled. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t appreciate finding Hydra trash in your sweatshirt pocket.” Bucky pushed away from the wall, his metal elbow bumped into Steve.

“Bucky, what on earth are you talking about?” Steve trailed behind him to the kitchen.

Bucky slammed his fist on the scrap of paper.

“What? Oh, Buck, I’m so sorry. I can explain.” Steve crumpled the paper and threw it into the trash can. “I didn’t want to tell you.” His voice went gentle. “I’ve been working with some friends. Hunting down Hydra cells and clearing them out. I thought it might upset you to hear about it.” He cupped his palm around Bucky’s neck. “I have to do what it takes to keep you safe.”

Of course that's all it was. Bucky suddenly felt extremely stupid. Steve’s hand on his neck was warm, and he tried to focus on that and the split in his lip. How many times he’d seen that same injury when Steve was a scrappy skinny kid? “C’mon, let’s get some ice for that lip.”

Bucky scooped some ice cubes into a dishcloth and handed it to Steve, hoping he’d managed to hide his wince touching the ice. He was still not a fan of anything cold. “You’ve been out taking down Hydra while I’ve been sitting around here doing nothing?”

Steve gave him an apologetic shrug with one shoulder. “M'sorry, I should have told you,” he said around the ice. “You’ve been adjusting so well, I didn’t want…” he trailed off.

“You didn’t want me to snap and become the Winter Soldier again.”

“It’s not just that. We don’t know what kind of control they had over you. What if they could trigger your brain to forget everything again?” Steve lowered the ice pack. His lips were cherry red and swollen from the cold.

Bucky raised his eyebrows. “It’s possible.” He took Steve’s chin in his hand and pressed a feather light kiss on his mouth. “I get why you’re doing it. Damn superhero who can’t leave well enough alone.” A thought tugged on his mind. “You said you were doing this with friends? Do they know about me?”

“Nah. I’m not ready to share you yet.” Steve gave him a look that coiled heat low in his belly. “Hey, what were you doing in my room, anyway?” he asked casually.

Bucky startled. “Oh, laundry. Someone’s got to keep this ship running while you’re out saving the world.” He paused, suddenly uncertain. "You don't mind, do you?"

Steve smiled stiffly. "Of course not. I just don't want you working too hard. You're supposed to be recovering, remember?"

"If I rest any harder, I'll turn into a piece of furniture," Bucky said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh, really." Steve tugged him across the room. "Doesn't seem like such a bad thing." His playful expression couldn't hide the wince of pain as he tumbled them down onto the couch.

Bucky frowned and touched the mottled bruise on Steve’s cheek. “Huh. I thought you’d heal faster than this.”

“Must be using all my superior healing abilities on my deep emotional scars,” Steve retorted. He caught Bucky’s thumb in his hands and drew it down his chest, then kept going, dragging it down to the edge of his shirt. Bucky’s knuckles grazed the line of fine hairs running from Steve’s bellybutton down below the waistband of his pants, and he sucked in a breath.

“I hear you can pay someone to listen to your problems these days. Might want to try that, Rogers.” He let his head fall back on the couch and splayed his legs.

“I got a lot of problems, Barnes.” Steve swung his leg and levered himself into Bucky’s lap. He cradled Bucky’s head and dipped down for a long, slow kiss.

Bucky slid his tongue into Steve’s mouth, just to pull a deep moan out of him.

“One of my problems,” Steve moved his head to the side and mouthed at the skin below Bucky’s ear, “is how distracting my best friend is. Sitting here with your legs open.” Steve wound a hand into Bucky’s hair and tugged gently. “It’s obscene, Buck.”

Bucky chuckled low in his throat. “You’re such a punk.” He slid his hands down Steve’s back and cupped his ass.

Steve groaned. “I can’t believe you never noticed how hot for you I was, back then.” He rested his forehead on Bucky’s collarbone. “Wanted you bad, Buck.”

Bucky licked his lips. “Tell me.” His voice came out barely above a whisper.

“Well,” Steve dragged a kiss from Bucky’s collarbone to where his metal arm joined his shoulder. “We’d be sitting next to each other in church, and when we had to kneel, I couldn’t stop picturing you on your knees in front of me. Gave me very unholy thoughts. I had to say five rosaries every Sunday night just for that.”

“Church?” Bucky stopped running his hand over Steve’s perfect ass. “I didn’t go to church. My ma is—was—Jewish.” His forehead wrinkled. “Wasn’t she?”

Steve paused for a moment, a funny look on his face. “Yeah, Buck, of course she was. You came with me sometimes, though. To make sure I didn’t pass out from pneumonia or somethin’, you said.”

“Oh,” Bucky frowned. “Sorry. I don’t remember.”

Steve smiled kindly at him “That’s okay. I remember enough for both of us.”

__________________________________________

Bucky rolled out of bed feeling at loose ends. Steve had been gone for three nights. He hadn’t left Bucky alone for more than a few hours before now, and even though he knew Steve's work was important, the separation made him uneasy. He realized he didn’t actually have a phone, and even if he did, he didn’t know Steve’s number. Which was actually ridiculous enough to make him laugh hysterically under the flow of the shower.

Lacking any better ideas, Bucky pulled on his old gear, tucked a few kitchen knives onto his body, and pulled a black knit cap over his hair. He ducked into Steve’s room and rustled through Steve's minimal piles of stuff until he found a gun. He was maybe a little rusty from the easy routine of the past weeks, but he itched for something to do, and taking out a small Hydra cell felt like the closest thing to a vocational calling he was likely to ever get. Besides, Steve wasn’t here to stop him.

This cell was a small research facility in an industrial park near Baltimore. Remembering how to get there like remembering how to ride a bike—you don’t think too much about how you’re doing it, you just know when it’s working and when it’s not. He should have aborted the mission at the first shiver down his spine of an indefinable wrongness. He should have, but he didn’t.

The front door was ajar, and the guard desk was empty. Bucky strained to hear anything, but it was pin drop silent. He thumbed the safety off on his gun and wrapped his hand around the grip. The door to the stairs, swung open with a heavy metallic thunk. He finally heard signs of life, downstairs, probably three floors deep below the ground. Blows landing on flesh and grunts of pain, someone begging before getting cut off abruptly with a gurgle. Bucky eased down the stairs silently.

“Where is he?” A voice, sounding strung out and thick with the strain of a fight. A voice that Bucky knew better than his own. “Where is the Winter Soldier? I know you have his files here.” A smack and a body hit the floor. “Just,” the voice shook, “tell me and I’ll let you go.”

Bucky edged into the room. “Steve? What the fuck are you doing?”

Steve, covered in blood and sweat, looked up at him like he was seeing a ghost. “Bucky?”

The man on the ground in front of Steve took advantage of the moment. He pushed to his feet and ran for an elevator in the back of the room. Steve didn’t give him a second glance. The room could have been on fire and Steve looked as if he wouldn’t notice. His eyes traveled over Bucky, drinking in—no, drowning in the sight of him.

Bucky shot Steve an annoyed look and ran back up the stairs to intercept the Hydra agent when he got out of the elevator. Fortunately, the man was just a tech, and easy to put down. He heard Steve clamber up after him, and rounded on him, poking a finger at his chest.

“You disappear for three nights and don’t even tell me you’re coming to clear out a Hydra cell that I could easily handle? This should have been _my_ job.”

Steve looked from Bucky’s finger to his face, his blue eyes wide in disbelief. Then a look of dawning recognition smoothed his brow. “Bucky, what year do you think it is?”

“Don’t fucking patronize me. I was worried about you.”

“I was worried about you!” Steve looked consternated. “Bucky, you’re saying I disappeared for three nights. It’s been weeks. Do you think our fight on the helicarrier was just two days ago?” Steve rubbed his face, leaving a smear of blood across his cheek. “I’ve been worried about you way longer than you’ve been worried about me, I promise.”

“You have some nerve, getting mad at me when you—” Bucky’s voice shook just a little, “—you don’t tell me anything about what you do, and you leave me alone for days. I don’t have anyone else, Steve! What am I supposed to do with myself while you’re gone?” There it is. His frustration has been a slow boil and it’s bubbling over now.

Above their heads, a window broke, followed by the sound of a heavy body hitting the floor. Steve’s hand flew to his shield. Feet pounded down the stairs.

The door to the stairwell burst open. Steven Grant Rogers stood in the doorway, chest heaving. “Bucky, get away from him!”

Bucky gaped at the Steve in the doorway, then back at the Steve standing an arm’s length from him. “You _cloned_ yourself, Steve?”

“He’s not me! I don’t know who he is, but that’s not me, Buck!” Steve in the doorway had panic edging his voice.

Steve closer to him narrowed his eyes. “Who the fuck are you?” He threw the shield so fast, Bucky almost didn’t have time to slide into its path. The shield banged off his metal arm.

“Bucky, it’s me. You used to smoke cigarettes on the fire escape outside my window.” The Steve closer to him had fire in his eyes. “We used to go to Friday night dances at the Fulton dance hall. You loved dancing. You used to read dime store pulps to me when I was too sick to get out of bed.”

“Bucky, come here, I’ll prove to you it’s really me.” Steve in the doorway held his hand out.

Bucky took a step toward the Steve in the doorway. “Bucky, no!” the other Steve shouted.

Doorway Steve clasped him close, gripped his head a little hard, and kissed him fiercely. It smelled like his Steve, the tang of Irish Spring soap mixed with exertion. Bucky pivoted to stand in front of Steve.

Other Steve ( _imposter_ , Bucky’s brain hissed) stood dumbfounded, his mouth agape at them. He had just barely snapped out of it when Bucky and Steve rushed him together. The imposter nimbly rolled out of the way, throwing punches, but only at Steve, never at Bucky. Even so, he proved hard to take down. Bucky fought dirty, trying to take the imposter’s legs out from under him, But the guy was slippery; he took some hard hits to the face but kept going. Slowly, but surely, Bucky and Steve were gaining an advantage on him, though. They almost had him pinned down when the imposter took off at a run and crashed straight through the window opposite them.

Bucky and Steve ran outside, but they were seconds too late as the imposter jumped on a motorcycle, revved the engine, and sped away.

Bucky leaned over with his hands on his knees. “What the fuck just happened? Stevie, he looked just like you. Sounded just like you, too. SHIELD been cloning you in your spare time?”

Steve slung an arm around his shoulder, tugging on his metal arm to bring him closer. “No clue, pal, absolutely no clue. I better report this, who knows what kind of damage this guy could do, going around impersonating me.”

“Lucky for you I knew who’s who.”

Steve’s eyes crinkled as he smiled. “Lucky for me. How ‘bout I prove my identity to you again?” He bent and fit their mouths perfectly together, slipped his tongue boldly into Bucky’s mouth.

___________________________________

“I _am_ concerned, of course I am. It’s my face out there, doing god knows what.” Steve bit into an apple.

“Well, it sure doesn’t seem like a high priority.” Bucky was in a mood, pushing Steve harder than he felt like he had a right to. Steve’d been nothing but patient and sweet to him since finding him, but it had been several days and he's shown no urgency in getting to the bottom of the clone problem. “You should use me as bait. If he’s Hydra, maybe he’s pretending to be you to reel me back in.”

Steve gave him a long, considering look. “Maybe. Suppose it could work.” He crunched through the core of his apple and chewed it, seeds and all.

Bucky hunched over the kitchen table, his ankles twined around the legs of his chair. “I know you took my weapons when you took me in,” he looked up at Steve, “I need a gun.”

Steve nodded grimly. He angled his head for Bucky to join him and strode over to his towel closet. The back of the closet, under the shelves, was a false wall. He nudged the panel aside and stepped out of the way.

Bucky whistled. “Planning a war, Stevie?”

“Hey, some of these aren’t mine!”

Bucky drew out his handgun and knives. The knives were a familiar weight in his hands.

“You remember, in the war, when we had to carry these things through the woods?” Steve drew a finger along the barrel of an old WWII-era machine gun.

“Slippery as fuck in the rain. Felt like it was always raining.” Bucky looked at Steve with the gun. “But you hardly bothered with guns. You only had a pistol, said they might as well keep the firepower for other soldiers. Your shield was better than any gun.”

Steve glanced at him. “No, I had this one. They gave it back to me after I was unfrozen.”

Bucky frowned. “I know you didn’t have this.” It was a stupid point to argue, especially with the evidence right in front of him, but Bucky was stubborn like that. “You said the shield and your fists were good enough. And they were.” His lips quirked up as a memory, clear as day, of Steve with a shit-eating grin on his face, catching the shield when Bucky flung it his way, just in time for Steve to clock a Nazi with it.

“Don’t you remember I had this with me when I rescued you?” Steve rested a hand on Bucky’s metal shoulder. “God, the sight of you on that table, Buck.” His voice trembled.

Bucky covered Steve’s hand with his warm flesh one. “We always find each other, in the end, don’t we, pal?”

Steve’s answer was a muffled groan as they pressed together in a kiss. Steve pulled away. He looked seriously into Bucky’s eyes. “I’m so glad you’re back.” His voice was low and smooth as melted butter. “You have no idea how much I missed you. Was like living without a limb.” His eyes widened and he blinked fast, his face turning from pink to maroon in five seconds. “Sorry. I mean. That was a stupid thing to say.”

Bucky grabbed him by the back of the neck. “Accidentally mentioning my missing arm. Now you’ve done it. That was the one thing keeping me from flipping the switch back to the Winter Soldier.” He grazed his teeth along Steve’s ear. “Better think of a way to distract me.”

_____________________________________

Bucky walked outside their building, eyes sweeping left to right, assessing for threats. Environment: clear. There was a deli five blocks south; Steve had brought home sandwiches once. The pastrami had almost given Bucky a flashback to 1940. Steve was coming home for lunch today, he’d said, so Bucky figured he could pick up some sandwiches, maybe a couple of giant sour pickles. The look on Steve’s face when he ate something he really enjoyed was sinful.

Two blocks away, Bucky looked down a side street and saw a tall, blond, square-shouldered man leaving a coffee shop. He sprinted up behind the man.

“Thought you had business uptown,” Bucky said as he reached Steve.

Steve turned and pulled his sunglasses off. He looked at Bucky, stricken. “Bucky?”

“I was just going to pick up lunch, wanted to…” Bucky squinted at Steve, trailing off, “...surprise you.” He backed up, his metal hand moved to the knife he had tucked in his belt. It wasn’t Steve. It was the imposter, it had to be.

The blond man watched Bucky’s hand grasp the knife, and breathed out hard like he’d already been stabbed. “Bucky, I don’t know what’s happening, but the person you think is me—he’s not me. I’ve been searching everywhere for you since I saw you in Baltimore. Before that, since the helicarrier.” Not-Steve’s eyes flicked from the knife to Bucky’s, back and forth. “I miss you so much,” he said, his voice dropping low and rough.

“This is fucked up, even for Hydra.” Bucky flipped the knife in his hand. “Why pretend to be Steve? If they want to bring me back in, there are easier ways.” Bucky scanned the buildings around them, looking for Hydra backup.

“Look, I don’t know why they’re doing that to you, it’s all I’ve been thinking about for two weeks. Come with me, we can figure it out together. We were always better together.” Not-Steve’s mouth turned up at the corners in the saddest smile Bucky had ever seen.

Bucky’s hand itched to strike. The prospect of a fight tightened his muscles, pumped his heart rate up.

The imposter tensed at the change in Bucky’s stance. “Buck, don’t make me do this. I don’t wanna fight you, but I can’t lose you again.” He wasn’t pleading, his voice was hard and uncompromising.

“You’re not Steve!” Bucky pounced. He slashed the knife down toward Fake Steve's stomach. Someone screamed behind them. The imposter dodged fast. He grabbed Bucky’s knife hand and twisted it up.

Disappointment and exasperation flashed on Not-Steve’s face. “There are civilians!” He pulled Bucky toward him.

Bucky growled and kicked him in the kneecap. He was dimly aware that people were rushing out of shops around them, cell phones out.

Not-Steve dragged him into an alley, one arm across his chest, the other still holding his arm at an angle just shy of breaking the bone. Bucky slammed his head back into the imposter’s throat and reached for his gun. The Not-Steve gasped and stumbled, his grasp loosening. Bucky wrenched out of his arms and rounded on him with gun raised. He squeezed the trigger and watched a bullet rip into the imposter’s shoulder.

Sirens wailed close by. There was a lot of yelling at the entrance of the alley. Bucky re-holstered his gun and ran, leaving Not-Steve bleeding against a dumpster.

________________________________________________

Bucky was stilling shaking from the adrenaline when Steve came home for lunch. “I didn’t even get the damn sandwiches,” Bucky muttered. Steve ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair, rubbing at the soft short hairs on his neck. Bucky arched his neck into the touch.

“If it makes you feel better,” Steve said with a note of hesitation in his voice, “I know where he lives. Apartment on Connecticut Ave. Security looks lax enough, anyway. It wouldn’t be a problem for you.”

“Not a problem for me,” Bucky said flatly. Steve thinking of him as still being the Winter Soldier unsettled him, made his insides turn queasy. He supposed he deserved it, considering he’d just shot a man in an alley.

Steve didn’t seem to notice how Bucky had stilled under his hand. He kept petting Bucky’s neck absently. “You go in first, make him think that you believe him. He’ll be so hap— off guard,” Steve mused. “He’ll never it coming when you end him. You’ll be the last thing he sees.”

Bucky went cold. “I don’t do that anymore. I don’t want to be a weapon, not even for you.”

“You want this guy parading around town pretending to be me? Christ, Buck, think about the damage he could do.” Steve’s voice was tight. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to, of course. But it’ll never work if I go in first. It has to be you.”

Bucky gripped the edge of the kitchen counter. “I’ll do it, but I don’t want to kill him. Not just yet. We should bring him in, find out who he’s working for, what he’s trying to do. Isn’t this something your SHIELD buddies want a hand in?”

“They’re all on an op. I got a special dispensation to stay home, didn’t want to leave you for a month.”

“So it’s just us.”

Steve clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It’s always been just us.”

__________________________________

Bucky patted down his tac gear and checked that his weapons were all in place. He was dangling upside down four stories above the ground, just outside the imposter Steve’s living room window, a diamond tipped glass cutter clenched between his teeth. He cut the window pane out and dropped it to the ground. There was nothing for it but to let it fall and make a noise, but if Steve was right, it wouldn't matter; his presence would be distraction enough. He swung soundlessly into the apartment. Once Steve felt the rope go slack he would run down from the roof and enter the building through the back door whose alarm Bucky had disabled.

The room was dim. Bucky blinked, but it had been dark outside and his eyes adjusted fast. He knew without seeing that the imposter was sitting in the room, silent and waiting. Bucky could feel the tension pulled taut in the air between them.

“Might as well turn on a light, seeing’s how you’ve been expecting me.”

“If you’re gonna do it, I don’t want to see your face.” The man sounded weary down to his bones. “There’s nothing I can say to convince you you’re wrong, not when you’re here dressed like that.”

Bucky touched his vest. A light clicked on, next to the couch. The blond man sitting there stared at him with haunted eyes. He was wearing the same clothes from earlier, the dark red blood stain on the shoulder crusted over, but no sign that the bullet wound pained him at all; there wasn’t even a bandage under the tight white shirt. The room was sparsely furnished, but what was there looked comfortable, well-chosen. A pencil sketch of the Brooklyn Bridge hung above the couch.

“I’ve been turning it over and over, since I saw you two.” The man shook his head. He didn’t take his eyes off Bucky. “I just can’t figure why. They could have just used your programming. It seems so needlessly messy to get emotions involved. Thought Hydra liked thing neater than this.” The man watched as Bucky slowly paced the perimeter of the room.

Steve was waiting downstairs. He’d said he’d come up if Bucky didn’t complete the mission in three minutes. Three minutes was an eternity. Bucky’s missions were measured in seconds.

Bucky picked up a book, a cheap paperback with yellowed, dog-eared pages. The inside front cover was filled with a drawing of a pier, a man sitting on the edge with his pants rolled up and bare feet dangling off the edge. Bucky fingered the knife tucked next to his hip.

His three minutes weren’t up, but Steve never could keep time on his own for shit. He burst through the apartment door shoulders first, gun drawn. “Bucky! Thank god. I was worried.” He gave Bucky a relieved smile that was tight around the edges.

The other man rocketed up on his feet. His jaw clenched, and if fire could shoot from eyes, it would have ignited the room. “What are you doing with Bucky?” he demanded. He stalked to Steve and grabbed his wrist. Steve punched him in the face. It barely seemed to register on the blond man, who was twisting Steve’s arm to get control of the gun and swearing like a sailor.

Time stuttered for Bucky. He should have pulled his knife, or a gun, he could have incapacitated the other man in three moves. Steve yelled “Bucky! Help me!” At the same time, the other man grunted out “Stay away from Bucky!” The man wrested the gun away from Steve and pointed it with deadly calm. He looked like an avenging angel, murder in his eyes and righteousness in the tilt of his head.

Bucky closed his eyes for one second. Two seconds. This mission was over. This mission had started on a park bench outside the Smithsonian. This mission had been Bucky the whole time. He opened his eyes, drew his gun, and shot Steve Rogers in the chest. He watched Steve’s eyes widen in surprise before they fluttered closed.

The blond man turned, his face melting from violence to confusion, then to a scared kind of hope. “Bucky?”

Steve—but not really Steve, after all—slumped forward, his blood a scarlet circle spreading wider. His face and body were slowly changing, his hair darkening.

“Steve,” Bucky croaked. He tucked his gun back into its holster, because letting it clatter to the floor would have been nicely dramatic, but Bucky was trained better than that.

“You know me.” The man, the real Steve Rogers, said it almost to himself, wondrous.

Bucky’s face twisted. “Who the fuck is _he_?”

Steve looked down, like he’d forgotten the man who moments before was threatening his life. He looked back up at Bucky. “Damned if I know.” He pulled out a phone and held one finger up to Bucky, as if Bucky would leave while he was on the phone. “Sam? I have a situation. Bring back up and restraints. Restraints that could hold me.” He chuckled at something Bucky couldn’t hear. “Not _for_ me!”

Steve tucked the phone into his pocket, never taking his eyes off Bucky. Bucky felt dizzy and boneless.

“You were... that was you, in Baltimore.” Bucky’s voice choked with regret. “And in the alley. I shot you.”

Steve touched his shoulder. “Just a scratch.”

Bucky felt a whimper rise and die in his throat.

“Buck, seeing you with him, not knowing what they were planning to do with you, not being able to help you… I’d rather be dead than fail you again.”

“Jesus, Steve. Don’t say that,” Bucky said fiercely. “Don’t. I’m not worth it.”

Steve stepped over the prone man on the floor. “You’ll always be worth it. Shoot me a thousand times, Buck, I’ll still come crawling back to your side. You’d have to kill me to make me stop. Even then, I think I’d haunt you until your last breath.”

Bucky’s knees shook, he locked them straight and held himself tight as a bowstring. “Steve Rogers never knew how to back down from a losing fight.” Guilt tightened his throat like a noose. “You haunted me for seventy years. They wiped me over and over and over again. Every time I froze, your face was the last thought I had.”

Steve made a sound like an injured animal. “They are never going to hurt you again.”

“Would I even know?” Bucky looked at the man on the floor, then up at Steve. “It was so easy.”

Steve’s face was tragic. “I want… can I?”

He was so close, his arms outstretched for an embrace. Bucky wanted only to step into it, but instead he shook his head and looked over Steve’s head at the drawing of the Brooklyn Bridge to avoid meeting Steve's stricken eyes. “It’ll only make this worse.”

A man and a woman arrived at Steve’s door—they must have been close. Or no, he realized. They must have flown, for the man had a pack on his back that brought up flashes of memory. “You were on the helicarrier,” Bucky told him. The man gave him a grin that was equal parts cocky and wary.

“Yeah, I was. But I hope you're not planning on throwing me off a roof this time..” The man looked Bucky up and down, calculating the number of knives and probably the exact the location of Bucky’s gun, too. “Sam Wilson,” he added with a short nod.

“Sorry about,” Bucky spread his hands out, “everything, before.” He looked at the woman. She had red hair, and stirred uncomfortable feelings that Bucky didn’t want to examine. Something in his brain tugged at him, wanted to speak to her in Russian, but fuck that, the soldier spoke Russian. Still, he probably owed her an apology, too. “Sorry,” he offered to her.

The woman pursed her lips and looked away.

“That’s Natasha,” Steve said. “They’re my friends.”

Fake Steve, the true imposter, groaned from the floor. He was slowly regaining consciousness.

Natasha snapped a pair of silver manacles on his wrists. Sam did the same with his ankles, for good measure. Natasha frowned at the man and pulled her phone out. She jabbed at it with angry fingers, then gave a satisfied snort. “Tony Masters. Alias Taskmaster.” She smirked at Steve. “He’s had a hard-on to be Captain America for about a decade.”

Steve’s eyebrows rose so far they practically escaped from his head. “Job was open for a while.”

“There were rumors-- that he got his hands on a corrupted version of the serum, shapeshifting, perfectly mimicking superpowers. I never met anyone who’d made direct contact with him, always thought he was an urban legend.” Natasha slipped her phone back in her pocket.

“He’s Hydra,” Bucky said through clenched teeth. Bucky had thought he’d gotten out, but he’d been closer than ever. This guy, Taskmaster, Tony, whatever he called himself, could have delivered Bucky straight back to a Hydra base, back to a chair and reconditioning at any time. Maybe that would have been better. At least it wouldn't have left Bucky feeling so dirty and used. “Can't believe I was so stupid,” he muttered.

Steve moved to his side. “He looked just like me, Buck. My own mother wouldn’t have known the difference.” Steve lied as beautifully as he fought.

“He wanted me to kill you. I was going to _kill_ you.” Bucky couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t meet Steve’s eyes. He looked away, let his eyes skim past Sam and Natasha. They landed on the man on the floor, who looked up at Bucky through lidded eyes. He winked slowly. Bucky’s stomach turned.

Bucky lurched to the door and ran through the hallway, down the stairs. He kept running down the street until he couldn’t see through the tears, and then he stopped, leaned over with his hands on his knees, and retched into a perfectly nice forsythia.

He heard the footsteps behind him. Steve wasn’t trying to sneak up on him, anyway. “Go away,” Bucky said, sniffling a little as his body continued to betray him.

“I’d really rather not.” Steve hovered a respectful distance away. “Sam and Natasha are taking him to a secure cell. We’ll get everything he knew. He’ll pay for doing this to you.” Steve’s voice was tight with anger. “You’ll never see him again. I just hope,” Steve took a strained breath. “I hope someday you can look at me without seeing him.”

Bucky wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Stubborn punk. I try to kill you three times and you come back for more. Never learn.”

“Well, you know what they say, third time’s a charm.”

Bucky looked at Steve. His golden hair, crooked nose, body that was sizes too big for any other human but fit Steve’s heart like a glove. Bucky let the guilt sit with the love and the sick feeling that he had almost taken this all away from himself so many times. “I need to go home,” he said. He felt the weapons on his body, weighing him down.

“That’s not really your home,” Steve said. He angled his head. “Come stay with me.” He added, “Please,” when Bucky’s face shut down.

“The idea that you could trust me right now is ludicrous.”

“I trust you with my life, Buck. You haven’t let me down yet.” Steve smiled weakly.

“I still need clothes. And I have a few things back there I need to get.”

Steve nodded. “Can I come with you?”

“No.” Bucky’s heart twisted at the disappointment on Steve’s face. “But I’ll come right back. I can’t—don’t want to stay there tonight.”

Steve’s smile was beatific. “I’ll put the couch cushions on the floor for you.”

That was something achingly familiar to Bucky. The knot of his heart could maybe loosen a little, with Steve there to tug on its frayed ends.

____________________________

**Epilogue**

 

“How did you know?” Steve looked up, blue eyes wide and earnest.

Bucky breathed a small laugh. “There was no art in his apartment. No sketchbooks, nothing up on the walls.” He brushed his hair out of his face. “I wanted him to be you so bad, it was easy to believe, at first.” Bucky paused, then added, “He never fought with me about anything.” Bucky’s smile widened. “When I saw you come at us with that stupid chin raised and your hackles up, the taste of a fight already in your mouth, how could I not know you?”

Steve snorted. He worried at the belt of his uniform. “Bucky?”

“Yeah?”

“I, uh, I know you and he.” Steve’s face was turning interesting shades of scarlet. Every blood cell in his body must have rushed to his skin. “I know you were, um, dating. Or something.”

Bucky raised his eyebrows. He could help Steve out here, but watching Captain America squirm was a singular pleasure in his new life.

“I mean,” Steve soldiered on. “I mean, did you want to do that, when you thought he was me?” He sounded like he was strangling on his voice at the end.

Bucky leaned over and brushed his lips over Steve’s, barely touching. “I did,” he whispered against Steve’s mouth. Bucky felt the tremor run through Steve’s body.

Steve pushed his forehead against Bucky’s. He pressed himself forward, smashed their mouths inelegantly together. Bucky stifled a laugh and tilted his head so they were actually kissing and not just mashing their faces together. Steve opened his lips first, licked Bucky’s lower lip and pulled it between his teeth.

Bucky pulled away breathlessly. Steve looked at him with dopey, love drunk eyes. “What’s the matter?”

Bucky fumbled for his notebook. “I forgot what you smelled like. This whole time.” He almost choked on the feeling tightening his throat. “You smell like home.” He gave Steve a brilliant smile. “I never want to forget that again.”

Steve, the big sap, let fat tears roll down his face while Bucky quickly wrote in his notebook. Bucky finished and reached up to smudge Steve’s face dry.


End file.
